Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the total amount of tax that has been (a) avoided, (b) evaded and (c) uncollected in (i) the last 12 months, (ii) since 2019 and (iii) since 2010.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) estimates the size of the tax gap, which is the difference between the amount of tax that should, in theory, be paid to HMRC, and what is actually paid. The tax gap statistics are published annually and are available on the GOV.UK website here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/measuring-tax-gaps.
Historical figures for the tax gap for taxpayer behaviours can be found in table 7.1 of the online tables on the GOV.UK website here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/measuring-tax-gaps-tables.
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of the the value of (a) suspected benefit fraud in the last 12 months and (b) unpaid benefits in the last 12 months.
Answered by John Glen
Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) estimates on the value of both fraud and error in the benefit system can be found in their annually published statistical report on the Monetary Value of Fraud and Error, the latest version of which can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/fraud-and-error-in-the-benefit-system-financial-year-2021-to-2022-estimates. The estimates for 2022-23 are due to be published by DWP on 11 May.
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the Government's Observations made on 7 November 2022 on petition P002765 on the Energy Profits Levy, presented by the hon. Member for Leeds East on 7 September 2022, (a) if he will publish a breakdown of the £28 billion that the Government estimates will be raised by that levy over the period 2025-26 and (b) how much in total does he expect to be raised in Financial Year 2022-23 from taxes on North Sea oil and gas companies including both normal taxes and the Energy Profits Levy.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
A breakdown of revenues expected from the Energy Profits Levy (EPL) for the period 2022-23 to 2026-27 is published in the 23 September Growth Plan, Table 4.2.
Estimates for the other North Sea taxes (ring-fence Corporation Tax and Petroleum Revenue Tax) are published in Table 3.4 of the Office for Budget Responsibility’s Economic and Fiscal Outlook (March 2022).
Updated estimates for all of these taxes will be published at the Autumn Statement on 17 November.
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent estimate he has made of (a) the taxable profits of North Sea oil and gas companies and (b) Government tax revenues derived from North sea oil and gas companies in the Financial Years (i) 2022-3, (ii) 2023-24 and (iii) 2024-25.
Answered by Richard Fuller - Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury
HM Treasury does not produce estimates of profits of North Sea oil and gas companies.
Forecasts for Government revenues from oil and gas production are provided by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). Their most recent published forecast, provided for Spring Statement 2022 on 23 March, is available on the OBR website at: https://obr.uk/efo/economic-and-fiscal-outlook-march-2022/.
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make an estimate of the number of people with wealth over £10 million in each of the past 10 years.
Answered by Lucy Frazer
The tax information HMRC holds does not include comprehensive data on the wealth of taxpayers.
The Office for National Statistics undertakes a Wealth and Assets survey biennially, which can be found here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/datasets/totalwealthwealthingreatbritain.
Table 2.5 provides a percentage of households estimated to have wealth of over £1 million. The most recent estimate was 17 per cent of households.
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing a one-off wealth tax on individual wealth above £10 million.
Answered by Lucy Frazer
The Government is committed to a fair tax system where those with the most contribute the most. This is why the Government has taken steps to ensure the wealthy pay their fair share by reforming the taxation of dividends, pensions, and business disposals to make the tax system fairer and more sustainable.
The Government has also ensured the wealthy pay the tax that is owed. In 2019-20, HMRC secured £2.2 billion in tax from the wealthiest individuals that would have otherwise gone unpaid.
The UK does not have a single wealth tax, but it does have several taxes on assets and wealth. The UK taxes assets and wealth across many different economic activities, including the acquisition, holding, transfer and disposal of assets, and income derived from assets.
Notably, the Wealth Tax Commission, which has no connection or link to the Government, found in 2020 that if considering Inheritance Tax, Capital Gains Tax, Stamp Duty, and Stamp Duty Land Tax, the UK is among the top of the G7 countries for wealth taxes as a percentage of total wealth.
It is also clear that the Wealth Tax Commission’s suggestion of a potential one-off wealth tax in the UK would be a complex undertaking, and the amount of revenue raised would be highly dependent on the final design of the tax.
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the total North Sea oil and gas receipts to Treasury was in (a) 2019-20, (b) 2020-21 and (c) 2021-22; what the estimated total North Sea oil and gas receipts to the Treasury in (i) 2022-23, (ii) 2023-24, and (iii) 2024-25; and what estimate he has made of the total revenues of North Sea oil and gas companies in each of those years.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
Forecasts for government revenues from oil and gas production are provided by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). Their most recent published forecast, provided for Spring Statement 2022 on 23 March, is available on the OBR website at https://obr.uk/efo/economic-and-fiscal-outlook-march-2022/.
Government revenues received from North Sea oil and gas operators between 1968 to 1969 and 2020 to 2021 are presented in Table 2 of HM Revenue & Custom’s (HMRC) “Statistics of government revenues from UK oil and gas production” publication, available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/government-revenues-from-uk-oil-and-gas-production--2
Data for 2021 to 2022 onwards can be found in the “HMRC tax receipts and National Insurance contributions for the UK” tables, also available at
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hmrc-tax-and-nics-receipts-for-the-uk
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of the number of people who are receiving less than the minimum wage while on furlough due to the covid-19 outbreak in (a) Leeds, (b) Yorkshire and the Humber and (c) the UK.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
Applications for the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) opened on Monday 20 April. By midnight 17 May 2020, 986,000 employers had submitted claims to HMRC representing 8m furloughed employments and £11.1bn.
This is a new scheme and HMRC are currently working through the analysis they will be able to provide based on the data available. HMRC will make the timescales for publication and the types of data available in due course.
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what estimate he has made of the number of small businesses renting premises where business rates are included as part of their rental agreement; and what steps he is taking to ensure that such businesses are able to access the Small Business Grants Fund.
Answered by Kemi Badenoch - Leader of HM Official Opposition
As of 1st May, Government has provided up to an additional £617m for Local Authorities in England to enable them to make grants payments to businesses in these circumstances.
This funding will be used by Local Authorities to create a Discretionary Grants Fund.
Local Authorities are responsible for defining precise eligibility for these funds. And businesses will need to apply to their Local Authority in order to receive grants – each LA will need time to create their own process.
However, it is our intention that the following businesses should be considered as a priority for these funds:
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of the number of people paying Class 4 national insurance contributions in (a) Leeds East constituency, (b) Leeds and (c) Yorkshire.
Answered by Jane Ellison
The information requested is attached.
This is based on the Survey of Personal Incomes 2014-15. Constituency numbers are rounded to the nearest 100, and regional numbers to the nearest 1,000. Due to rounding the sum of numbers for Parliamentary constituencies may be different to regional numbers.